DARIEN—A tie against Westhill would have been good enough to secure the Darien girls soccer team a spot in the upcoming FCIAC playoffs.

The Blue Wave did more, winning the game 1-0 with a goal late in the second half, keeping them in position with two games remaining to snag one of the top four spots and home quarterfinal game next Friday.

Darien (10-2-2) went to a more aggressive 4-4-2 formation in the second half, peppering the Westhill goal until Katie Ramsay broke through with a goal with 9:06 left to play.

Darien’s formation-shift not only opened up space offensively, it helped them more closely mark Westhill’s duo of Corinne Dente and Claudia Benz.

“We changed the formation a little going into the second half because we were giving them a little too much room and they have two great payers in (Dente and Benz),” Darien coach Leigh Parsons said. “I felt we weren’t getting numbers forward in the first half and I think it worked in the second half. We kind of dominated the second half. We also had more fight and determination in the second half and that is what ultimately got that goal.”

Darien was awarded a corner kick which Westhill (5-8-1) failed to clear resulting in a shot that was punched out by Vikings keeper Niamh Keogh but bounced right to Ramsay.

Ramsay one-time the bouncing ball back over Keogh’s head for the goal.

Prior to that Keogh had been excellent, turning away multiple Darien scoring chances, making 16 saves on the evening.

“(Keogh) has played well all season and I thought our two center backs were excellent as were our midfielders. We didn’t really put a foot wrong we just got unlucky,” Westhill coach Dave Flower said. “They tried to spread us out a little more but I didn’t think they would score unless it was from a set piece. I thought it was probably a fair result. I thought a tie would have been fair, too but they had more of the ball tonight.”

PLAYER OF THE GAME

Katie Ramsay, Darien. Ramsay scored the lone goal of the game for Darien after applying pressure to the defenders all night.

QUOTABLE

“We just kept getting so many chances after that corner kick came in and out and I knew one of us just had to get something on it,” Ramsay said. “Everyone was going hard at the ball, I was just lucky to be the one who got on it. We switched back-and-forth between a 4-3-2-1 and a 4-4-2 and the 4-4-2 is when we scored because we were attacking more then we switched back after and protected out goal.”

PLAYOFF BOUND

The win secures Darien’s spot in the FCIAC tournament. At 32 points with two games left, the Blue Wave are still in a position to get the No. 1 overall spot.